She gave him a wan little smile, and dried away a few tears with the aid of his handkerchief.
"I don't know where mine is," she said, half-crying, half-laughing. "I must have dropped it somewhere."
"Or the Boo-Boos took it." He smiled at her puzzled expression. "Don't you know those dreadful little people—the people who hide one's pencils and one's handkerchiefs, put the clock back so that one misses one's train—or an appointment—and invariably send an organ-grinder outside one's window when one is hard at work and can't bear a noise!"
"But why do you call them Boo-Boos?" She might have been a child asking for the explanation of a fairy-tale.
"Well, they aren't Brownies, because they are a good little folk. And the Pixies, though their tricks are much the same, pursue their avocations out of doors on moor or hill; so that the only name I could find for them was just that—Boo-Boos!"
He laughed at her bewildered face.
"Come, Mrs. Rose, don't you ever feel conscious of their teasing presence? Don't you lose your hair-pins, or your brooches, or whatever corresponds to our collar-studs? And have you never noticed how a pen with which you are about to sign an important document, a will or something of the kind, has changed mysteriously into a pencil—generally without a point—when you pick it up?"
He had succeeded in his intention. His nonsense had won her to a smile; and the eyes which a few moments before had looked like those of a tortured woman were once again the eyes of a child.
"Do you know, Mrs. Rose"—Herrick felt there was danger in prolonging the situation once she had attained a comparative serenity—"I'm afraid it's going to rain! Don't you think we had better be moving homewards?"
She rose at once.